To paraphrase John Carpenter, “In France, I’m an auteur; in the USA, I’m a bum.” The same can surely be said of Abel Ferrara, a veteran filmmaker who at this point in his career is more likely to bank on Gallic financiers than stateside money. Love him or hate him, you can always count on Ferrara — a true enfant terrible of American cinema — to bring something interesting to the table. Appearing on the Croisette for the first time since the “unofficial” premiere of “Welcome To New York” in the Cannes Film Festival market, Ferrara’s latest, “Alive In France” — a documentary auto-portrait of a recent concert tour in the Gallic nation — is the kind of homage that the Director’s Fortnight sidebar dog-ears a slot for with each edition.
“Alive In France” came about as the byproduct of a career retrospective and accompanying concert series organized by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse in September and October 2016. This short tour, which continued in Paris, reunited Ferrara with regular composer Joe Delia and actor-singer Paul Hipp (rapper Schoolly D didn’t manage to cross the Atlantic due to passport issues, a story that the filmmaker gratingly recounts at 10-minute intervals). Following the well-worn rock-doc template, “Alive In France” is earnest — if slight — in its attempt to capture the intensive atmosphere of the retro’s multimedia events.
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Regrettably, the music on its own is nowhere near as interesting as Ferrara’s films, and the caterwauling of the rehearsals is about as off-key as the shows themselves. The director remarks that he probably would have soundtracked his work to the Rolling Stones if he had the budget; sonically, that would be preferable here, too. Mercifully, “Alive In France” maintains a healthy balance between the musical material and Ferrara’s interactions with his bandmates, the documentary crew, and French journalists. The director even attempts to shill his film to students on the steps of a local college, although the efforts of finding kindred spirits seems to get lost in communication.
Ferrera makes for an interesting screen presence, and even if it was vanity that motivated him to develop a doc of the experience, the choice of subject remains an expression of solid casting sensibilities. The filmmaker’s grizzled visage and gnarly teeth are an omnipresent contrast to the assertiveness of the shoulder pads that structure his blazers, all cumulatively a record of his hard living. A humorous motif during the Toulouse portion of “Alive In France” finds the director always on the hustle, ending each conversation with a sales pitch for the upcoming concert. One thing is for certain: the director isn’t mugging for the camera. This is pure Ferrara, as evidenced by the interviews within the film, or — in one of those “only in Cannes” moments — if you happen to catch a glimpse of him walking down the Croisette (not shilling “Alive In France,” mind, but likely his upcoming “Siberia”).
Ferrara’s characteristic electricity comes through in fleeting moments, most notably in a sequence when he cross-cuts seamlessly between the concert performance and excerpts from “The Driller Killer,” an early work in which he stars. It’s surprising that the director doesn’t pull this editorial tack more often, which would place the audience of “Alive In France” within the same rich context of the retrospective that the gigs accompany. Beyond this moment, the film doesn’t have too much going on visually; the red and blue gel lighting of the concerts is immersive, but otherwise, it’s standard operating procedure for this kind of thing.
Likewise, “Alive In France” displays at least of touch of griminess and bad taste, but it comes too late in the proceedings. As Paul Hipp sings ballad “Midnight for You” from “China Girl,” one particularly inebriated concertgoer jeers and boos throughout (surprising, because this is the least abrasive track). Hipp responds in kind with a brief tirade before cheerfully telling the woman her mother’s a whore. It may be a crass moment, but it’s a funny one that the crowd (on-screen and in the cinema) ate up. The budget, too, is worn on the film’s sleeve — not to say that the movie looks particularly cheap, but the question of when and how much everyone’s getting paid is oddly front and center, a symptom of the director’s difficulty in raising financing in recent years.
Considering John Carpenter’s surprising success at pulling off a music career late in the game with his “Lost Themes” albums, one can’t blame Abel Ferrara for adopting a parallel track. That said, just as the director of “Bad Lieutenant” looks less likely to find a new revenue stream with his band, “Alive In France” is a proportionate depiction of an attempt at the same: worth a look but not much more. Early on, Ferrara quips of the whole project: “It could only happen in this country [France].” Certainly a curio for Ferrara fans (and warmly received by the attendees of its Cannes premiere), “Alive In France” won’t be the one to rehabilitate the director’s career to a wider audience. [C+]
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